Cops
Cops is a 1998 Lovian action comedy film produced and directed by Nathan Kelly and Louis McCain. It is about two Lovian cops expelled from the Noble City Police and must try to stop a band of terrorists who are trying to build a nuclear bomb. The film had mixed reviews from critics, who only praised the comic relief in the film, and by movie fans, who wanted to see a little bit more action, but audiences eventually warmed up to the film, making the film the third best Lovian film of 1998. The success of the film spawned three sequels: Cops II (2004), Cops III (2010) and Cops IV (2012). The film was rated PG for mild violence and language. Plot John Reeves (William Harris) is a Noble City cop, who earned a reputation for being "Noble City's Most Reckless Driver". Reeves hides in a dump truck after suspecting a trucker tried to rob the Bank of Noble City. He got some units to follow the trucker, causing him to crash into a gas station. Reeves escapes unharmed, but the trucker is seriously injured. The police captain (William Carlson) expels him from the Noble City police force. Reeves gets so angry, he swears at the captain. The captain notices and arrests him. Connor Alexander (Matt Richards) is a popular, but aggressive Lovian cop who is friends with the captain. He gets arrested for drunk driving and too is expelled from the Force. Reeves befriends Alexander as their cells are right next to each other. At night, Reeves grabs a metal wire he found tied around the cell bars and tries to grab the keys off the security guard. Successful, Reeves opens both his, and Alexander's cell. They both step out and step into a laser beam. The alarm goes off and they escape. They jump into a police car and ride to their apartments. The next day, Reeves watches a news report on the TV, that a band of terrorists from an unknown country called the "X" (Richard Downson, Will Kennedy, Paul and Jason Matthews) are trying to build a nuclear bomb. Seemingly uninterested, he goes to Noble Beach with his girlfriend Lisa (Sarah Williams), only to have the beach attacked by the terrorists. They escape unharmed. Their car then crashes into a ditch, so John and Lisa walk to Noble City on foot. They stay for the night at Alexander's apartment, which features a widescreen TV, a Jacuzzi and other luxuries. Reeves becomes jealous and a violent, but comedic fight begins between the two. Reeves bites Alexander in the leg and Alexander tries to fight his way from Reeves. They both manage to push the fight to the limit and fall out the window, and land in a garbage pile, three floors below. They're not seriously injured, but Lisa begins to get annoyed at Reeves. 2 hours later, in the hospital, Alexander is shown to be in severe shock from the fall and is not allowed out from the hospital for a few days. Reeves tries to apologize but Alexander manages to slap him a couple of times (again shown in a comedic manner). Reeves then eventually gives up and leaves with Lisa, who becomes more impatient with him and his antics, finally dumping him. She hops into a taxi, which leaves into the distance. Suddenly, as Reeves walks across the highway, a car with explosives crashes into a tree behind him, causing it to explode. Reeves is sent flying and some blood can be seen on the highway (not from Reeves, but the drivers). Suddenly, the driver wakes up and starts chasing Reeves. They run on top of some cars before Reeves steals a Ford Mondeo. Reeves knocks down and kills the guy chasing him and rushes to Noble City, smashing into some cars before crashing into the opposite side of the freeway. Almost a week later, Alexander gets suspended from hospital by his wife, Nicole (Alexandra Wilson) and some friends. Reeves tries to apologize to Alexander, for the sake of his relationship with Lisa and for his friendship with Alexander. Alexander reluctantly forgives him and they go to find Lisa. Problems begin developing in Noble City as the terrorist group murders a local cop who refuses to give them his gun. As they continue building the nuke, Reeves and Alexander become suspicious of what is going on and they decide to find the terrorists. Awhile later, they're both shot down by tranquilizer guns and abducted. Alexander wakes up and warns Reeves. They both wake up and find they're trapped in a flooding room, strapped to chairs. Lisa is found to be abducted as well. She manages to rip free of the ropes and grab a knife off the terrorists. As they try to fight her, she cuts their hands with the blades and runs to get the cops off the chairs. The terrorists abruptly go and activate the finished nuke. The timer reads 15:00:00 and starts ticking. The ropes manage to snap and they manage to escape. Around three minutes later, they find the nearest elevator, which takes a long time to get to the surface. They get in it. After a minute, it becomes stuck. They rush out of it and try and find a staircase as there is no other elevator in the underground base. The terrorists manage to find the group. They find themselves cornered. Lisa manages to accidentally press the button of a tannoy, which plays a catchy dance pop song. The terrorists, along with Reeves and Alexander start comically dancing. Lisa grabs a rifle lying on the floor and shoots the terrorists, allowing the group to escape. The timer is at 0:13:96 and Reeves smashes the window and parachutes towards the nuke, with his pocket knife. He cuts into the wiring and manages to disconnect it. The bomb stops working and he tries to return to their floor. Once they find the staircase, they're confronted by another large group of terrorists and Lisa realises she has no ammunition left. They're forced to fistfight the terrorists. While Alexander beats them up, they escape. Alexander then jumps over the railing onto another stairwell and runs upwards. An unstable brick wall is lying on top of the stairwell. Just as the terrorists start to move, Alexander pushes the brick wall down onto them, setting a massive chain reaction which destroys the entire base. A brick falls against a power generator, smashing it, and sending a massive bolt of electricity through the base, which causes the computers to explode and send bolts of electricity onto the disactivated nuke, causing it to explode. Luckily, the base is so deep underground, that it only explodes. A slight earthquake is felt in Noble City, but people think its nothing. The group escapes, with the terrorists dead. The film ends with John Reeves proposing to Lisa, and they get married shortly after. Both Reeves and Alexander get their jobs back, and Reeves earns the captain's respect. Production Filming Filming began in January 1997 and lasted until March 1997. Various techniques were used during filming, including slow motion, for example near the beginning, when Alexander's car drives over a ramp and lands on a car transporter, rips a car's fuel tank open and causes all the fuel to pour out, later causing the transporter to accelerate, igniting the fuel and causing it to explode. (see below for Visual Effects) Filming locations were Noble City, Noble City International Airport, Noble Beach, Artista, Train Village, Sofasi Casting The filmmakers used a rather strange form of casting to get someone to play the lead role. They placed an advertisement on the Internet to see who could come up with a surname for John Reeves, the main character. Eventually, William Harris found the advertisement and used his mother's maiden name "Reeves", and got the role. The rest of the casting was done physically. Visual effects The film used a wide range of visual effects. Most of them were practical, as the directors wanted to use as little computer animation as possible. Nathan Kelly, one of the film's directors commented that: "Computer animation would waste the reality of the movie. We don't want to use it as much, unless we really need it." When making the scene where Connor's car flies up a ramp and crashes into a car transporter, the filmmakers got Matt Richard's stunt double, Jack Niell to do it. Niell admitted he was scared when he was filming that scene. Then, they poured kerosene from the car to make it look like the car's wheel burst the other car's fuel tank open. The kerosene was rendered using computer animation to look more like petrol. Later on in that scene, when Richards' car tries to get untangled from the other cars and it begins accelerating the transporter forward, eventually causing the fuel to light up in flames, the filmmakers again used some computer animation to make the kerosene look like petrol. They then physically burned it, causing cars to explode on the transporter. This was thought to be one of the most difficult scenes to film. Reception The film's reception was mixed by critics and movie fans, having a movie rating of 56%. However, not all reviews for the film were bad. Critics praised the use of slapstick comedy, saying that "you don't find much of that slapstick in Lovian films. Cops definetely has lots of that." It even started a small subculture in Noble City called Copism, which was reportedly started by fans of the "Cops" series. A critic said, "Fun, smart, and hillarious, Cops definetly proves that it's one of Lovia's funniest films." It was positioned second on the 1998 box office, grossing $176 million in Lovia, $87 million in Brunant and $73 million in Category:Film Category:Transbaum Films